Oh man, Mexicans are so much fun! So, Wednesday was the Bicentennial celebration of the Indepence of Mexico and the Centennial of the abolishment of slavery, so to say the least, we had quite a party!! Hahaha!
I started the day off by going to work and subsequently getting off early. Yay for short days! Peter and I then went to my place to change out of our work clothes and go and play! Peter is the other Canadian intern that is working at the Canadian Consulate with me. We jumped on a bus and headed down to Centro Historico to spend the day celebrating! It was ridiculous! We got there and the first thing we noticed was this GIANT sandwich and I mean GIANT! It stretched around the entire perimeter of the main plaza. I wish I knew exactly how long it was but just imagine the worlds largest Torte Ahogado and that is what was there. And it sat there in the sun for quite awhile before they started serving people. They easily were serving that sandwich for around an hour. It brought me so much joy! Haha!
Downtown was just full of crazy fun. They had a carnival set up in one plaza and a bunch of street vendors in another plaza. They were selling everything from face paint to mustaches to socks. We wandered around and ate a whole bunch of random food and did a lot of people watching. We also burned to a nice crisp while we were there. It made me laugh because as we walked around we naturally would stay in the sun while all of the Mexicans had this talent for finding the shade and sticking to it. Made us laugh.
Side note: Mexican children are SO cute! I just want to steal one and take it home with me!
After we spent many, many hours wandering around the different plazas and eating and looking in churches and such, we set up camp in the main plaza to wait for the main event to take place. It was the strangest event I have ever attended. Strangest is the wrong word.... It was just very different from how I would have done it. This was the evenings itinerary.
1) Opera singer with a string orchestra
2) Long break with nothing
3) Freaking awesome firework show!! The person standing two people over from me got hit in the head with a firework! Hahaha! It was hilarious.
4) More dead air time.
5) A full orchestra performance
6) More dead air time.
7) El Grito
8) Lamer fireworks
It was so weird! We constantly thought something awesome was going to happen and then it didn't. Haha! And the entire time there was a clock counting down right in front of us so we could watch the minutes of dead air time tick by!
El Grito was SOOO cool! There were a bunch of soldiers who came marching up to the Governor in a really traditional way where their feet were coming right up so they were at a 90 degree angle. Hard to explain but it brought me much joy. They brought a Mexican flag up to the Governor who then brought it out onto the balcony who looked out onto the plaza that was PACKED to the brim. The Governor then came out and made this really passionate speech about Mexico and their independence and a bunch of other stuff. He would say a sentence and then the entire crowd would scream ¡Viva! It was so awesome! Seriously! I felt so patriotic!
Anyways. It was an awesome night. My feet were killing me by the end but it was totally worth it. Such a good night! Living here is pretty great! Viva Mexico!
No comments:
Post a Comment